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This paper deals with a temporal use of French preposition "dans" (‘in’) in sequences such as "dans" + Num. + N (e.g. "dans trois jours" ‘in three days’), where the temporal PP indicates a temporal distance from a reference point to a posterior event. We call this use of dans ‘prospective use’. We focus more particularly on cases where the noun (N) is not a temporal noun but a noun denoting an event (e.g. "dans trois élections" ‘in three elections’) or an object (e.g. "dans trois bières" ‘in three beers’). We explore the conditions in which these types of entities allow the measuring of the temporal distance.

In this paper, we show that there is a very large and diversified class of nouns denoting entities which are neither events nor concrete physical objects, but a particular kind of entities that we call, following Husserl, « ideal objects » or « idealities ». What makes these objects peculiar is a « spiritual content » that they are endowed with. All of them result from a creative act performed by one or many humans and are designed to be instantiated in the reality because that they are expected to be read into and understood. This is for instance the case of texts, novels, songs, portraits, promises, as well as of theorems, symbols, concepts and triangles. By studying in detail the behaviour of ideality nouns in several spatial, temporal, agentive and modal structures as well as their ability to allow propositional complementation, we show both that they are radically different from event nouns and what makes them so special within the general class of object nouns., Nous nous proposons de montrer qu’il existe une classe de noms qui désignent des entités qui ne sont ni des événements ni de simples objets concrets physiques mais des objets, qu’à la suite de Husserl, nous appelons des « idéalités » (un roman, une chanson, un portrait, une promesse, mais aussi un théorème, un symbole ou un triangle). Ces objets sont porteurs d’un « contenu spirituel » et ont vocation à être instanciés dans le réel puisqu’ils sont destinés à être interprétés. Nous mettons en évidence à la fois la différence radicale entre les noms d’événements et les noms d’idéalités, et la spécificité de ces derniers à l’intérieur de la classe des noms d’objets en général.